Are social media posts about a fruitless three-day search to find the owners of a lost dog authentic? No, that's not true: These are bait-and-switch posts that flip to real estate ads. Identical images of a "really depressed" dog in a cage have appeared in posts on Facebook in cities and states miles apart. All these posts ask users to share the story -- and then the posts flip to ads.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on the Facebook group Tarpon Springs / North Pinellas / Buy, Sell, Trade / No Rules on August 22, 2024. Above two images of a caged brown-and-white spotted dog with an orange collar, the caption said:
UPDATE : THIRD DAY!.😔
it's now the 3rd day and i haven't found the owners of this guy we picked up by the road side here in #Tarpon Springs
He's really depressed, not eating. We took him to the vet he not chipped. Please help me bump this post so I can find the owner.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Aug 28 16:53:29 2024 UTC)
A search of the Facebook platform using keywords from the posts "Aaliyah Smith" and "Trade" yielded multiple posts from different locations featuring the exact images of the social media user and the dog seen in the post where the claim initially appeared.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Aug 28 17:00:29 2024 UTC)
The locations on these posts show the dog in at least three counties across the U.S. For instance, one post lists the location as Pinellas County in Florida. Another post lists the location as Macoupin County, Illinois, (archived here) on August 22, 2024, the same day the post in which this claim appeared in Florida.
A Google reverse image search (archived here) of the image of the dog in the cage in this post revealed multiple matches to websites that call this post a scam. The first result is a March 5, 2024, article on the website of FMX 94.5 radio in Lubbock, Texas. The station reported that the "Wounded And Lost Dog" post on Facebook featuring the same dog image is a scam, where the "tell" is that it uses the word "bump" to circulate it and allow the post to stay viral.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Aug 28 17:00:29 2024 UTC)
In a separate search for this lost dog post, Lead Stories discovered a post (archived here) advertising a rent-to-own home purportedly located near the border of Nevada and California. The edit history of this post shows that it initially displayed the claim of the lost dog before flipping to real estate.
Three dots in the upper right corner of a Facebook post open a menu for a social media user to view its "edit history." The edit history opens as a pop-up window, displayed in the image below, showing if the post has changed and when. Although the original photos of the dog are not visible, the edit history shows that a day after the post was made, two attachments were removed, and one was added.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Aug 28 17:00:29 2024 UTC)
Real estate scam postings
In a previously published August 14, 2024, fact check, which debunked a similar bait-and-switch claim, Lead Stories defined what real estate scam posts are:
Real estate scam posts are a tactic used on Facebook by spammers that employ 'bait-and-switch' content to lure people into a scam. A post's creator will pair an alarming or heart-wrenching claim with a compelling image to catch people's attention -- missing children or aging adults, injured animals, injured people in hospital beds and sex trafficking tactics -- and drive engagement.
Once a post has garnered sufficient attention, the content switches to push a deceptive real estate advertisement. The wording and images of these eye-catching posts, typically seen on local Facebook 'yard sale' pages," are frequently identical, even when the offered property is located in different cities, regions of the U.S. or countries.
The content switch is clearly documented by a post's edit history, which also notes additions or deletions of content. In some instances time stamps on the posts indicate when the switches were made but on some posts, timestamps don't change even though the content does.
Commonly, such posts use links that lead to landing pages with disclaimers or false promises and contact information requests that can be used to gather personal data, including financial information, from people who follow the trails.
Some links purport to connect people to a U.S. Housing and Urban Development site to help them search for deals on foreclosed homes. Lead Stories found the links lead to new sites that carry disclosures at the bottom of the page that note they are 'not affiliated with, endorsed, authorized, or approved by the Federal Government or the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.'
Additional Lead Stories fact checks about bait-and-switch scams can be read here.
